Сергій Кабуд

The unique strategic importance of oil to the modern economy—beyond that of any other commodity today—stems from the fact that the global economy’s very enabler, the transportation sector, is utterly dependent on it, with 220 million cars and trucks in the United States alone (today, contrary to popular belief, only 2 percent of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, and conversely only about 2 percent of U.S. oil demand is due to electricity generation.) With 97 percent of U.S. transportation energy based on petroleum, oil is the lifeblood of America’s economy.America is poor in oil relative to its need.It consumes one of every four gallons in the world but has barely 3 percent of the world’s proven reserves of conventional oil. The United States now imports over 60 percent of its oil, more than twice the ratio of imports before the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo.Neither efforts to expand petroleum supply nor those to crimp petroleum demand through increased CAFE standards will be enough to reduce America’s strategic vulnerability anytime soon. On the contrary, as the graph from OPEC’s own statistics shows, when we drill more, they drill less. Such policies at best buy us a few more years of complacency, while ensuring a much worse dependence down the road when America's conventional oil reserves are even more depleted.